Valerie Kellogg

Jessica Shaw

You'd think Beverly Hills would be the ideal setting for a new Housewives. But something about the camera-ready personal trainers, fresh blowouts, and requisite forehead-filler scene makes you miss the real-ness of a NeNe, Caroline, or Ramona.

Robert Lloyd

Some of these women are troubled, certainly, but none of them seems like trouble. Indeed, I felt a little sad at times, watching--not as I usually do, for the society that could produce such a program, but for the actual women in it, as far as I could make them out.

Alessandra Stanley

Mark A. Perigard

There's an undercurrent of desperation in this spinoff--the belief that a woman is only as good as her face and figure, and that there's always some pretty thing on her way up to take her place. These women know they are disposable. That's the ugly truth lining the sun-kissed streets of Beverly Hills.

David Hinckley

The best thing that can be said for the six Real Housewives of Beverly Hills on their opening night is that they aren't as annoying as their counterparts in New York or New Jersey. The fact they don't make us want to wash our hands, though, is not the same as saying their self-absorbed dramas are worth an hour of our lives.

Heather Havrilesky

They can barely speak, or formulate a cohesive thought. They can't see clearly. They plod forward at an excruciating pace, stumbling clumsily over each other to get closer to the camera. They are easily distracted by bright lights, and shiny things. But they are so hungry, so ravenous! And that makes them vicious. Yes, The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills are just as terrifying as the others of their kind.